


Fool Me Twice

by grrriliketigers



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grrriliketigers/pseuds/grrriliketigers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miranda lets her playful side out on April Fool's Day</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool Me Twice

Miranda lay in bed staring at the ceiling. 

The girls were taking the second divorce very hard. They were still moping about and acting like lost souls. They had never really liked Stephen, but his sudden appearance and then sudden absense in their lives was unappreciated. 

And you know, hell, Miranda was pretty upset about it too. She wasn't upset about it because she loved Stephen and thought they would live to a ripe old age together but she was upset because he asked _her_ for the divorce. He rejected her. _Fucking third divorce in fifteen years_.

One last glance at her calendar on her way out of the office had confirmed that it was indeed April Fool's Day in... she looked at the clock... in one hour. 

"Alright," she spoke into the empty room. She pushed herself out of her bed. "If I'm going to do it... I'm going to do it right." 

After vowing to stop talking to herself she got dressed, got into her car and drove to the closest all night store. She started in the first aisle and looked over all the products trying to decide on just exactly the right jokes. And just exactly the right victims. 

A can of whipped cream went into her basket first. The girls would be pranked, of course. Miranda wondered who of her employees would be appropriate prank victims. Nigel. Nigel had known her longer than anyone she was still in contact with and he would surely appreciate the joke. 

And Emily. She was clearly mad about Paris. Everyone thought that Miranda was oblivious to the goings on between the employees, they thought that she didn't listen when they grumbled. Miranda heard far more than anyone would reasonably imagine. She knew that Emily was still mad at her.

Perhaps a good way to launch into her new persona as a tough dominatrix, but with an occasional whimsical side, and to break Emily out of her funk she would play a joke on Emily as well. 

"That make-up." She said aloud, the thought refusing to stay silently slogging around in her brain. The girl's make-up was... overdone. She had a very pretty face and it wasn't in her best interest to make herself up like a mardi gras mask every day of the week. 

Miranda was going to make a very good go of it, that much was certain.

**

More excited than she could remembering being since she was a child, she didn't sleep very long before getting up to start putting a few of her plans into effect. 

It was still too early to start pranking the girls so she took one of her purchases into her ensuite bathroom that was bigger than most twenty-somethings first apartments. Emptying the box's contents onto the counter she read the directions, making sure, absolutely, 100%, _dead_ certain that the effects would wash out. 

Twenty minutes later she emerged from her bathroom shaking out her hair, watching the dark strands falling into her face. She grinned and couldn't believe how elated she felt. She felt invigorated and full of life. 

Down three flights of stairs to the kitchen, she retrieved the whipped cream and walked back up two to the girls rooms. She entered Cassidy's first, making sure to shake the can outside before venturing in. She had her iPod earbuds in so she was pretty sure she could get away with the noise from the can. She spread whipped cream over one hand and then a little dollop on a freckled nose. She repeated the same with Caroline.

She went back to the hallway knowing that their alarms would wake them up within minutes. She didn't have long to wait as one twin let out a soft cry of surprise, then the second followed. After a few moments of stunned silence they startled to giggle. 

They burst out of their rooms. Faltering for a moment at her hair. 

Miranda grinned and looked upwards to her hair. "You like it?" 

Caroline looked over at Cassidy. Cassidy nodded curtly to her sister and they looked back at Miranda before diving for her and smearing their whipped cream all over her. Miranda retaliated by tickling the twins' sensitive sides.

Collapsing in a pile of pyjamas, whipped cream and giggles the Priestly women toussled until, exhausted but still laughing, Miranda exclaimed, "mercy! Mercy!"

They separated, sitting on the floor in the hallway, recovering from their fits of laughter. When the girls looked up at Miranda she had tears in her eyes. They crawled towards, concerned, "mom, are you okay?"

"Did we hurt you?" 

Miranda shook her head, pulling the girls into her arms, "I just love you two so much," she kissed their foreheads, "I'm just... so happy to have you in my life."

The girls smiled. "We're glad to see you happy again." 

Miranda gave them a squeeze. "We all need showers." 

"Happy April Fool's Day, mom."

Miranda kissed both their foreheads, "happy April Fool's Day, girls." 

**

Getting into the car, Miranda wore a scarf to hide her hair color so that Roy wouldn't tip anyone off and she could surprise the greatest amount of people. 

In the elevator, she removed the scarf and tucked it into her Versace bag, repositioned her sunglasses and suppressed a smile.

She could scarcely have hoped for a better reaction. As Emily rushed to the door to greet her with the day's schedule, she was so stunned that she ran into a man pushing a rack of clothes, who was also stunned to see Miranda's hair. A couple of clackers, did a double take, a couple almost fainted. 

Nigel walked down the hall, stopped dead in his tracks, mouth agape, staring at the hair. "Whoa." 

"Emily," Miranda said softly, "are you just going to lay on the floor or do you think you're going to do your job sometime today?"

Emily got to her feet, trying to recover from her shock. 

Over the course of the morning, Miranda had sent Tia, the new junior assistant, to two separate addresses, on two different sides of town, that didn't exist. She sent a memo to the beauty department to buy clown paint, a memo to the closet about buying space saver bags and she she sent coloring books down to the art department. 

Miranda cleared her throat from the doorway. Nigel looked up from a sheet of proofs, "hi." He said. 

She walked in. "Nigel, I don't know if you know this, but our numbers are dropping. We still have our old fanbase but we're not reaching as many young people as we used to."

"Oh?" 

"So, we're, uh, going for a younger image." She set a box down on the table and slid it over to him.

He looked at her skeptically over his glasses, pulling the box to him and opening the lid and pulling out a toupee. "Miranda..."

"That's all." She turned on her heel and left the room. 

As she passed through the outer office she whispered, "Emily, follow me." Miranda pulled open her glass doors and took a seat behind her desk. 

Emily stood in front of it, dutifully. 

Miranda leaned back in her chair and sighed. "Emily, it's your make-up." Miranda nodded to the edge of the desk where she'd placed make-up removing wipes and a paper bag. 

Emily looked down at the objects and then back up at Miranda. 

"It's your choice..." 

Emily was stunned. She stared at Miranda for a few moments before hesitantly reaching down and taking the wipes slowly. She turned to leave and Miranda stopped her, "oh, and get me all the files from last November's issue burned to a CD in triplicate. That's all." 

At an entirely different publishing house, one that housed The Mirror, Andy Sachs was wrapping up her assignments for the day, prepared to take the afternoon off. The news of Miranda's sudden dye job had trickled down to her that morning and since then she hadn't been able to get the woman off her mind. 

Somewhere along the line she stopped being mad at Miranda. Today she realized that she actually missed her. As she looked at the e-mailed link that Lily had sent her, Miranda Priestly's raven tressed locks greeting her eyes from Page Six!Online, she felt a twang of sadness and nostalgia. The woman knew how to keep the world guessing. She deserved to be where she was, she hadn't deserved to be ousted by Irv Ravitz and his anti-Miranda agenda. 

As if on cue the phone rang. 

"Andy Sachs," she put the phone to her ear, still trying valiantly to finish her article.

"Andy... oh my god." Emily's frantic British accent resonated through the receiver, "Miranda has gone completely batshit crazy." She lowered her voice, slightly, for the insult, though part of her didn't care if Miranda heard her. 

"Emily... I'm touched you thought to call me..."

Emily scoffed, "Andy, believe me, I make it a point to keep you furthest from my mind at all times. But she wants me to download all of your files from last November and make three copies of a CD."

"Oh..." Andy bit her lip, already knowing what the problem was.

"And I log on to your folders and to my surprise it all looks like gibberish. What the hell, Andy?" 

Andy chuckled nervously, "well, you see, I took this class in college."

" _Andy!_ " Emily snapped angrily.

"And I sort of learned how to encrypt files and I used to practice on my Runway stuff when I was waiting for the book..."

There was silence on the other end, "alright." Emily took a calming breath, "how to _un-_ encrypt it?" 

**

When Andy got to the lobby of the Elias Clark building, Emily was waiting for her. She grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the elevator. 

"So, help me, Andy Sachs, if you can't unencrypt those files I'm going to draw and quarter you." Emily hissed as they rode up together. 

As the elevator opened, Emily grabbed a scarf from a rack and put it over Andy's head, leading her down the hallway.

"Hey!" Andy protested, trying to struggle away from Emily, who, despite her size, was unnervingly strong.

"If Miranda sees you she's going to have a shit fit, so just be _quiet_."

When they reached the desks, Emily pulled the scarf from her head and pushed her toward the computer. "Go." Emily pointed and glanced at the double doors, Miranda still sitting behind her desk. "I'll keep a look out." 

"And what? If she-"

" _Shut-up_." Emily glared. Then began to whisper, "if she hears you, it's over for all of us." 

**

Miranda was sitting behind her desk. She could hear Emily freaking out, which was nothing short of a twice daily occurence, and, therefore, wasn't particularly surprised. But she heard another voice, it almost sounded like Andrea. Though, she reasoned, there'd be no way Andrea would be back at Runway. Not to mention that if Andrea had walked up to the security desk and tried to enter, they would have called Miranda immediately. 

No, it couldn't be Andrea Sachs. She didn't even bother to look up. 

Andrea... she would like to say that she hadn't given the impertinent girl another thought after having left her completely alone on the steps of the last event (apart from about 100 papparazi, of course). Miranda would like to say that Andrea had been just like any other assistant. 

She'd like to say that she hadn't felt a bigger sense of loss when Andrea left her than when Stephen left her. Realistically, she'd been closer to Andrea than she'd been to Stephen. She'd revealed more of herself quicker to Andrea than to anyone. She'd thought that Andrea had seen that. She'd thought that Andrea had known that Miranda thought she was something special, that she was different from anyone else Miranda knew, that Miranda wanted to share more of herself with Andrea than with anyone else (other than her children).

It was, perhaps, because Andrea had never asked anything of her, she'd never expected anything from her. She was a pure soul who just expected respect. 

Miranda's musings were interrupted by the sound of someone entering the office. Miranda assumed it was Emily and lifted her head to give her a piece of her mind for entering unannounced and uninvited. 

Standing in front of the desk, however, was not Emily, but Andrea. 

Miranda's mouth dropped open despite herself. She furrowed her brow, not able to ascertain why the former assistant would be standing in front of her desk, but was not about to ask. 

"We can't access the November files... not yet. I encrypted them when I worked here... now I can't remember how to undo it... I'm not a very good encryptionist. I can take it home with me and work on it.... but, you know, you don't have to give Emily a hard time about it because this is my fault." Andy fidgeted. 

Miranda snorted a small laugh, leaning back in her chair. "It doesn't really matter. I don't need the files. Tell Emily she can breathe again." 

Instead of retreating, Andy took a step toward the desk. "What do you mean it doesn't matter and you don't need the files?"

Miranda scrutinized Andy's face. Finally, slowly, she said, "it was a joke."

"It was a joke?" Andy repeated, stunned.

"It is April Fool's Day, isn't it?" Miranda asked with exasperation.

Andy's mouth dropped open, "you..." she stammered, trying to wrap her mind around the idea. She started to laugh. "It's April Fool's... _you_ played a joke?"

Miranda pursed her lips, feeling a little offended, "yes. I did. Is that so strange?"

Andy shrugged, "kind of. Yeah." Andy laughed again, "you have the entire papparazi circuit in a panic, you have all your employees pissing themselves, Emily is out there wearing no make-up and Nigel is wearing a toupee and they're both hating you with everything they've got... and it's a joke..." 

"Aren't jokes more funny when you're not expecting them?" 

"Wow." Andy went on. "It's funny, because it's like you've been carefully constructing a persona of a no-nonsense dictator just so you could play the most epic April Fool's Day joke ever."

"Epic?"

"It even got me over here and I don't work for you anymore." 

"I'm glad it did." Miranda admitted softly. 

Andy smiled slowly, "really?" There was a pause, "this isn't just more of the April Fool's joke?"

Miranda stood up from her desk and stood in front of Andy. Andy watched her warmly, taking in the older woman's perfume and the slightest hint of sweat. The scents combining to drive Andy wild. "I missed you, too." She whispered.

Miranda studied her face. "April Fool's?" 

Andy shook her head. Miranda reached up and cupped the brunette's cheeks, Andy leaned down and pressed her lips softly to Miranda's.


End file.
